If you’ve been following along, you have made it half-way through our multisensory note reading series 🙂 And today we’re talking about composition. Arguably, composition and note printing go hand in hand. But I have separated them because it is one thing to copy and print notes, and it’s another to compose pieces!

Around the studio, I consider composition a “theory undercover” aspect of lessons. All students are encouraged to compose – even simple things. Why? Because knowing how to write music awakens a much deeper understanding of how to play what is already written for them. Composition is one of the most tangible ways to teach theory – so many concepts must be understood and used at once! Students often don’t even realize that they are working on theory while composing 😉

Back in September, I put out a Composition Resource Roundup, and I encourage you to check it out here! I gave links to my favorite composition activities, and I outlined how my private studio did a Fantastic Fiction Composition project this summer and had a blast! I was so impressed how each student worked hard to make their music convey certain emotions, characters, and scenes from different books they had read. I was also blown away at how many students specifically used concepts they were learning in their pieces. It created some very diverse and exciting works of music, and was just what we needed to liven up lessons during a pandemic 🙂

Today though, I am sharing a short and sweet resource that I have created to help your students get started in composing early on! My hope is that you will use these cards to create other silly sayings and sentences to spur on composition. Composition can look like creating an entire piece. But to start the creative juices flowing, it can be helpful to take 5 minutes during a lesson to work with a couple of notes and a couple of specific rhythms. After writing these down, your students can choose to discard or expand on them later. But you are setting the framework for your students to be creative on their own!

I hope you enjoy using this “undercover theory” trick as much as I do 🙂

Pro tip: You can easily google “free pdf staff paper” and find what you need. My FAVORITE place to download staff paper is blanksheetmusic.net. At the touch of a button you can adjust to absolutely anything you may need, then print! It doesn’t get much easier 🙂

Looking for other multisensory note reading tricks? Check out days 1-5 below!

Day 1 : Note Printing

Day 2 : Kinesthetic Learning

Day 3 : Backwards Alphabet

Day 4 : Note Sorting

Day 5 : Note Reading Apps